Pope calls for halt to 'evil' gay marriages

The Vatican yesterday urged Catholic politicians to actively campaign against legalising gay marriages which it said were evil, deviant and posed a grave threat to society.

In a document which was immediately condemned by gay rights campaigners as shocking and inflammatory, Catholic lawmakers were warned that any support of same-sex unions was "gravely immoral" and there was a moral duty on them to publicly oppose moves towards legal recognition of such marriages.

In Britain gay couples are to be offered the same legal rights as married couples from 2010.

The Pope's new guidelines will make uncomfortable reading for the more liberal clergy as well as many Catholic politicians, including the Tory leader, Iain Duncan Smith, and the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Charles Kennedy.

The paper represents a ratcheting up of the Vatican's struggle to reverse the worldwide momentum behind legalising gay marriage.

"There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God's plan for marriage and family. Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law," it said, adding: "Legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on the same level as marriage would mean not only the approval of deviant behaviour ... but would also obscure basic values which belong to the common inheritance of humanity."

The papal note says people extending cohabitation rights "need to be reminded that the approval or legalisation of evil is something far different from the toleration of evil".

The guidelines, which were issued by the Vatican's orthodoxy watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, also described gay sex as inhuman and gay couples adopting children as "doing violence".

The intervention comes as the Church of England faces splits over the appointment of openly gay clergy and moves towards legalising gay marriages in Europe and America continue apace.

The Netherlands, Belgium and two provinces in Canada have passed legislation recognising same-sex unions. Germany and France allow gay couples some form of civil partnership with legal rights.

The issue is charged in the US, where some lawmakers in the House of Representatives have proposed a ban on gay marriages to counter state laws granting legal recognition to gay unions. President George Bush revealed this week that he wants to "codify" marriage to ensure it stays "between man and woman".

Gay rights campaigners said the Vatican was out of touch with the modern world and unnecessarily aggressive.

"It is deeply offensive language and the sort of language that comes from someone who has lost the argument. It is a desperate last bid to cling on to the 19th century from an organisation which has failed to admit that we are in the 21st," said the chief executive of Stonewall, Ben Summerskill.

The Roman Catholic Caucus of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement also hit out at the Vatican's language. "There isn't an awful lot which is new here in terms of the message but what is pernicious is the way the tone of the language has been ratcheted up. It is very aggressive and homophobic," spokesman Martin Pendergast said, adding: "It is a bit of deckchairs-on-the-Titanic time and the Vatican is clearly worried."

The note was greeted with anger across Europe, including in Italy. A small group of protesters in St Peter's Square held banners that read "No Vatican, No Taliban," and "Democracy Yes, Theocracy No."